Now many saw them going and recognized them, and they hurried there on foot from all the towns and arrived ahead of them.”

Can you feel the energy? Can you see the swirling coalescence of people approaching from all directions, centered on the healing promise of Jesus? This passage is actually an artificial construction; two short summaries bracketing 19 unread verses that detail the Feeding of the Five Thousand and Jesus walking on water.  The miracle stories that have been omitted by the lectionary are significant (and utterly preachable) in themselves, but the two little passages that sandwich them form their own unit that turns out to be foundational to our Christian identity. It’s about connection.

That’s the center of the Good News. Without connection the Gospel wouldn’t be the Gospel. 

Lately I’ve been pondering this idea of connection; what makes it, what maintains it, and what breaks it. I tell my premarital counseling couples that they have multiple times per day to make a choice to literally or figuratively turn toward their partner, or away from them; to caress or to offer a cold shoulder, to belittle or to encourage, to interrupt or to listen. Each of these small choices, taken together, present multiple forks in the road and serve to build—or break–a relationship over time.

And of course this concept doesn’t just apply to romantic partners—it’s part of our everyday lives as social creatures. Our daily connective choices build healthy communities, and healthy individuals. Lack of connection results in loneliness and isolation, which opens fissures in families and in society. We become polarized from living too much within our own heads and from forgetting how to listen to and be vulnerable with one another. 

We become like sheep without a shepherd. 

This isn’t news. Ever since Robert Putnam’s 2001 book, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of an American Community, people have looked at the phenomenon of disconnection and its effect on our society. In the past two-ish decades we have seen the effects of social media–which was ostensibly intended to build community—actually further isolating us into echo-chambered tribes. That is challenging enough. But then I heard something the other day on NPR that took it to another level, involving artificial intelligence. 

Have you ever heard of a relationship bot? 

It is now possible to download an app that will let you choose a chatbot “friend” that will effectively mimic, say, a fitness coach, a best friend, a psychologist, or even a romantic partner. This last one was the one that set me off; the reporter told of a man in a supposedly stable, respectful marriage whose spouse is too busy to give him the attention he desires. So he “turns to his artificial intimacy avatar for interest in him in a sexy way but, most of all, for the buttressing of his ideas, his anxieties with comments like, you’re absolutely right. You’re a great guy. I really appreciate you.”

What. Could. Possibly. Go. Wrong.

It gets better. Or rather, worse. MIT Technology Review (and other sources like NPR and The Guardian) have reported that for as little as a few hundred dollars it is possible to pay an AI company to create a deepfake of someone who has died. A grieving person can see and converse with a video version of their loved one whenever they want. This isn’t like a regular ritual or activity that is intended to help someone process grief in a healthy transformative way, leading them through a complex journey toward acceptance of a new reality for their lives. Rather, it is enabling someone to continue a relationship artificially, after that relationship has been broken by death. This isn’t grieving, it’s denial.

Similarly, having a chatbot tell you everything you want to hear isn’t doing the work of building a relationship; it’s making a choice to turn away from, rather than toward, a flesh-and-blood partner. It may be easier, but only in the short run. 

The ultimate result will be breakdown– disconnection.

This is where we are right now, and it worries me as a person, and as a pastor. But at the same time I see an opportunity for the church. More on that in a minute.

To be fair, some of these relationship bots might have their place. As the NPR reporting said, there are good reasons, such as disability, geographic distance, or financial considerations that would motivate someone to seek out an AI therapist or companion. But they are not an appropriate long-term substitute for real relationship. The risk is that these bots would be used as a shield against doing important emotional/spiritual work:The work of building trust and honesty. The work of listening—of understanding that we have two ears and one mouth for a reason. The work of humility and coming face to face with our flaws. The work of being human and living into our true selves–work that can only be done in companionship with another real, authentic, genuine, and similarly flawed, person or community.

Or, as author Anne Lamott says, “…nobody in isolation becomes who they were designed to be.” 

“And wherever he went, into villages or cities or farms, they laid the sick in the marketplaces, and begged him that they might touch even the fringe of his cloak; and all who touched it were healed.”

See the people again, drawn like iron filings to a magnet. Starved for hope. Starved for healing. The word has spread; whispers of miracles and cryptic parables of the Kingdom. People are told that they (yes, they!) are the light of the world. The curious come, bringing more curious friends. Others come bringing loved ones on mats—who knows how far they have to travel with their awkward loads? But they don’t care; they’re drawn to Jesus. Crowds and crowds of them, so that there is no rest for the weary teacher and his disciples. And Jesus generously teaches and heals them all, even if only by letting them touch the hem of his cloak.

And here’s the beauty of it—all of these people, from villages and cities and towns and farms, found connection just in the seeking of Jesus. Even before they got to him. 

The journey to Jesus brought people together in their desire for wholeness and healing, in their hunger for compassion and mercy in a world of occupation and oppression that had yet to comprehend what a resurrection story looked like.

It was in choosing to connect with the narrative of the Dream of God that the beloved community began to germinate; in choosing a path of faith and hope; a path of seeking, questioning, and yearning to become what they were divinely designed to be as children of God and followers of the Shepherd. It is now, and always has been, the choice to turn toward one another that is the foundation of the Good News.

And this is where I see an opportunity for the church. In a world of disconnection and isolation in which people are tempted, out of anxiety, despair, or apathy, to either withdraw completely or to mistakenly think they are treating their grief and loneliness through some version of Bots ‘r Us, the church has within its very identity both the salvific balm and the transformative tonic of connection, which reflects the divine  attribute of our Trinitarian God, who is defined by relationship.

 In choosing to make our journey to Jesus and in growing as his followers on the Way of Love we offer each other the healing gifts of presence, listening, forbearance, and if we’re lucky, a good sense of humor. We have an opportunity to show the world that the true Gospel of Jesus Christ calls us to reach outward—to the villages and towns and cities and farms and marketplaces—toward those in need of healing and compassion, in need of hearing that they (yes, they!) are the light of the world. Magnetically drawing people toward the self-offering love of the Shepherd.

Paul writes:

So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. In him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God.

That’s what we’re designed to be; a dwelling place for God. 

I’d like to see a chatbot do that.